Or her stepson, but Marla was too late.
Bastion was watching as Tess sashayed up the double-wide stairs to get to his room. She was putting extra swing into her hips to burn off some of the steam she’d worked up hearing Marla try to dress her like an amusing, yet disposable doll.
The guys and Tess had recently taken a big step in their relationships. She wasn’t about to let anyone tear her away from Bastion. To let him think he was less worthy of her affections because his stepmother was going to put up roadblocks.
He had opened up on the island, exposed vulnerabilities that she’d bet he’d had hidden even from his friends. Right now, Bastion needed all of her love. No price tag attached.
He was worth facing down that witch.
Tess was about to confirm she belonged with Bastion as soon as they got upstairs.
“My room is the last one on the right,” Bastion directed her. He seemed to be in a hurry as well. “I have an ensuite if you need to use the facilities.”
Okay, maybe he was in a rush for different reasons than hers.
“I’m fine. Just a shower if I’m going to change,” Tess replied.
“Are you really going to let Marla make Tess change?” War asked. “She doesn’t need to fit in with the rest of those useless knick-knacks your stepmother keeps throwing at you. Can’t disguise a brain with a dress. It takes a mind to hide a mind.”
“It’s up to Tess what she wants to wear,” Bastion said. “She might be more comfortable if she doesn’t stand out. I suggest we don’t let anyone talk to her if you want to hide her mind.”
He put a hand on her back as they all reached his bedroom door. It was slightly ajar.
Tess didn’t want to just walk right in. Bastion was a private guy and she didn’t want to cross that line without being sure.
He had to welcome her and pull her inside himself if that was what he really wanted.
“Go into my room. Strip off all your clothes and fold them neatly on the foot of the bed. Then stand there, facing the bed with your arms crossed behind your back.”
Or he could go all dominant and order her inside his private domain under his rules.
Still, she hesitated. This wasn't entirely about him.
What his stepmother said had shook her up.
She stared at the door with indecision.
Bastion made the choice for her.
“Remember your safe word,” he reminded her.
It was something that he did well, always giving her the power of consent even when he took over control.
Having given her all the warning she needed, he curled his arm around her back in a firmer manner that directed instead of simply encouraged her to go into the room.
She was hauled far enough inside to clear the door. Then he pushed her face first, up against the wall. Her forearms were captured behind her. They were held fast with one of Bastion’s hands in an unrelenting grip.
He got down into her face, at the side she had turned, so she could breathe without being smashed up against the wall.
“Are you playing with me?” Bastion asked.
His warm breath tickled her cheek as he spoke. Little warning hairs prickled the back of her neck in response.
War quickly entered the room behind them and closed the door for privacy.
“She’d better be playing with you. This stops if she doesn’t like it.”
Tess was so wet that her panties were ruined for the party.
How would Bastion feel about her going commando under his stepmother’s regulated dress?
“I was questioning myself and you,” Tess admitted. “Your stepmother tried to make me feel inferior. Were you bringing me up to your room like those other girls Marla gets dressed up for you?”
Okay. She was jealous.
Tess hadn’t even realized it herself until she started talking. Something about being forced and pushed by Bastion ripped out her insecurities for them all to see.
Bastion chuckled in her ear.
“I never fuck girls in my bedroom or invite them in here. Some might be brave enough to try. I’ll kick them out naked and throw their clothes out the window. I’ll fuck them in every other room of the house if I’m in a better mood. But I always am alone in this room.”
Tess wasn't sure if she liked his admission. It made her feel a burning in her chest and butterflies in her stomach.
The thought of Bastion having sex with other girls was distasteful. That his stepmother maneuvered him to do so made her angry. Realizing she was the first girl he wanted and had invited into his bedroom excited her.
It was tempered by the image of all those clothes he had thrown out the window and knowing he had wanted her to strip now.
“Were you planning on me giving the afternoon tea party a streaking?” Tess asked with uncertainty in her voice.
Bastion answered her with a sharp smack of her jean-covered bottom. It stung and she gasped.
“Give her another,” War rumbled out to her surprise.
She hadn't known that he liked seeing her get her butt spanked. Although, War had given her a few swats during sex himself.
“She deserves to have a pink arse if she thinks so little of you as her boyfriend,” War added.
Bastion complied.
Tess tried harder to bite back her gasp, worried it was going to sound more like a moan. She turned her face into the wall to muffle it.
Bastion was too close to her mouth and he heard anyway.
“Are you turned on by me spanking you or War watching?” Bastion asked.
Tess turned her face the other way, catching a glimpse of War’s dark face and his amused eyes.
He looked torn between rescuing her from Bastion before he gave her anything heavier and demanding to be the one to teach her a lesson. She wondered how War would do it.
Bastion rubbed her bottom over where he had spanked her as a reminder to answer his question.
She wiggled against his iron grip on her arms and rolled her hips back.
“Both,” she admitted. “Together.”
A knock sounded on the door, startling all of them.
Bastion let her go, walked a few steps to the door and opened it. He accepted a dress in a plastic dry-clean bag and a pair of pale-pink, red-soled stilettos.
How was she supposed to balance on top of those?
Bastion closed and locked the door. He turned around and leaned back against it, hands full of Marla’s idea of ideal tea-party wear.
His eyes looked down at the bundle he was holding and then up at her, a hooded look that spoke little of his thoughts.
“Why do you stay?” Tess asked.
She didn't know where the question had come from even though she had been the one to ask him.
Bastion just looked so out of place.
He made this room sound like a prison, a place where he was alone. Not really a refuge, although he fought for his claim on his territory by kicking other girls out.
He was standing there holding clothes that his stepmother had insisted upon. Despite being a ruler everywhere else, even in his own room, Bastion was a prisoner subject to his stepmother's whims.
“I have a plan. This is all supposed to be mine one day,” he said.
He gestured around him at the room, but obviously he was indicating the entire mansion. The family fortune.
“Marla’s a stupid mark. She thinks she has conned my father into giving her everything she wants, including me, through forcing on me a fiancée she can manipulate.”
“And you're willing to stay here, to do what it takes to have this? Is it really worth it?” Tess asked.
It wasn't her place to tell him what to do. They were still getting to know each other and a complicated past couldn't be learned all in a few weeks.
Still, Tess didn't think that Bastion’s future was worth selling out his present happiness.
“Are you going to save me, Princess? Come to rescue me from my loneliness, push your way through the r
oyal guards to give me your first dance at the Charming ball? I would be honoured to be the one you allow to put a ring on your finger.”
It was bitter for a proposal. A mocking betrayal of how he felt about all the girls his stepmother had tried to trick him into accepting before Tess.
He was wary. The expectation was that any girl that wanted him was seeking a crown. Of course, those girls would want to join him on his throne, surrounded by these riches.
“No,” Tess said.
Bastion’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. He was using it to mask his surprise. He was hurt at her rejection. She’d caught the widening of his eyes, his tightening grip as he clinched the bundle in his hands.
“I’m planning on stealing you!” she declared. “If it takes seduction to get you to follow me out of this farce you’ve played for too long, I’m willing to dress up for the role. Only, I won’t leave behind a slipper or you, Dark Prince.”
War whistled low. “Now that is how a bonnie lass should go about snagging a fox. Join the hunt only so long as to find his hideyhole and smoke him out before the rest of the hounds catch up.”
“You sure you can run in these?” Bastion asked, dangling one stiletto.
“I can’t even walk in those,” Tess confessed. “But they look sexy. Do you like them?”
“I do,” War replied. “Delicate but deceivingly strong heels for our fierce Wildcat. I would love to fuck you wearing just them, preferably wrapped around my shoulders.”
“Seconded,” Bastion said, pushing off the door.
“I’ll hold your hand and escort you to a chair to sit if you want to wear them to the party. Marla may think she can make you look foolish by risking your neck trying to fit in with mile-high stilettos. I vote we show her you have all the support you need.”
Tess opened her hands to accept the bundle of clothes and shoes from Bastion.
He shook his head.
Was he still mad that she had turned down his proposal?
It hadn’t seemed serious. They all were group dating. It had been only a short period that she had known any of them.
“I told you what to do earlier. You've already been spanked for questioning a direct order in the bedroom. If you want to continue to play, start stripping,” Bastion said.
He wasn’t nursing a hurt. It was more upping the ante.
She decided to go along, still turned on from that little game at the door.
It didn't mean that she was going to be entirely obedient. Bastion had forgotten to mention anything that she wasn't allowed to do. The bratty urge to take advantage of that was impossible to ignore.
Tess would bet that he was a stickler for details, so it would really rub him the wrong way once she told him the loophole she’d exploited in his orders.
Later.
“Are you going to watch or are you going to help me get undressed, Luce?” Tess asked.
She gave War a sideways glance as she walked to the foot of the bed.
“I’ll undress you,” War answered before Bastion could intervene.
Bastion laughed. She had thought he would get annoyed as she was deviating from his order, even in a small way.
“Do you want to start from the top or the bottom?” Tess asked War, ignoring Bastion’s laugh.
Now, she felt the urge to be even more bratty but wasn't sure what to do next.
Bastion wandered around his room as War helped her undress.
War had started from her top. As he stripped her shirt over her head, Bastion tossed a big luggage bag on to the middle of the bed. Her line of vision came back as Bastion began tossing things from the nightstand drawer beside the bed into his bag.
“Are you packing?” Tess asked.
“Yes,” Bastion confirmed, and nothing else.
War undid her bra’s back clasp.
“You can still pretend to kidnap him. We had already discussed a contingency plan for Bastion to stay at my house. I just didn’t think you would be the one to invite him.”
They had already planned for Bastion to leave?
“When were you going to tell me? I thought we were all in this together?” Tess asked.
“Don’t feel bad. I was the one that told War I wanted to keep it a secret until I was sure. That secrecy didn't have anything to do with you. It’s me. I’m trying to impress a pretty girl. Bringing up running away from my problems doesn’t sound all that impressive, right?” Bastion pointed out.
He didn't wait for her response to his rhetorical question, leaving off packing his nightstand contents to head over to the other side of the room and disappear into a walk-in closet.
“Be nice,” War advised.
Tess and Bastion were kind of bickering. She’d say Bastion was feeling edgy but perhaps it was her own reaction to Marla that put them at odds, too.
War slid her jeans down her hips to her ankles as she held her tongue. She stepped out of them as he continued to stand up for his friend.
“Bastion never talked about leaving home until he met you. Getting revenge for his birth mother was all he ever talked about every time he had to put up with some party, another girl his stepmother threw in his way. You gave him a different kind of future to look forward to, a better alternative to living for vengeance.”
“Trust me. Bastion doesn't want nice. He wants to play, remember?” Tess asked.
She shrugged off any mention of saving Bastion. The guys were doing the same for her. They were even.
Wasn’t helping each other out a normal part of a relationship?
“All you have left on are your panties. Do you need help getting those off, too? I wouldn’t mind stealing a pair of your knickers,” War said.
His accent was coming out, even slipping into calling her panties as ‘knickers.’
“They’re all wet, so I can’t wear them under the dress. Do you think Bastion will mind if I go naked under it?” Tess asked, purposely teasing.
She had caught sight of Bastion coming back into the room from the closet.
Bastion tossed a pile of pants and shirts on top of his luggage to free his arms. Crossing his arms over his chest, he gave Tess an arched brow and a challenging gaze.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Those look very rip-able, Kitten. Flimsy. Easy to tear right off of you,” Bastion commented
“They’re silk. Is silk harder to rip when it’s wet?” she teased him.
“Are you making sure that I heard your sweet pussy is dripping for us?” Bastion asked.
“Aye,” War rumbled behind her. “She’s hinting rather strongly. Do you think she wants you to check for yourself?”
Tess blushed despite her bold flirting.
“Yes, please.”
“You still aren’t in position or naked,” Bastion pointed out. “Bend over the bed and don’t touch your panties. Hands on the footboard.”
“Are you sure we have time for this?” Tess questioned.
She bent over as directed despite her query.
Although the thought of playing with Bastion and War in the bedroom was tempting, she hadn’t forgotten Kade and Keir were out in the garden. Those poisonous, thorny roses would be trying to bleed her twin lovers if Marla had anything to do with it.
The stepmother was cruel, not stupid. She knew Tess had all the boys’ attention the moment they arrived at her doorstep. The guys could fake disinterest, but Tess knew actions spoke louder than words.
Bastion brought her to his room. War declared her his girlfriend. The twins couldn’t keep their eyes off of her before Marla forced them away.
“We don’t have enough time,” Bastion said with a sigh.
Tess straightened.
“Over. Hold your position,” Bastion snapped at her.
War sat down on the mattress so that he was face-to-face with her as she bent and clung to the decorative iron frame at the foot of the bed.
“If you want a front seat to the spanking, shouldn’t you be behind me?” Tess teased.
She tensed her buttocks for Bastion to begin. Her wet panties said it was mostly in anticipation.
War gave her a sweet kiss on the forehead and pulled back to look into her eyes.
“I want to see your face. Spanking doesn’t seem to be what Bastion has in mind... ?”
She tried to look back but War captured her face between his palms and gave her another kiss. This one was on the lips.
Warrick Stewart knew how to kiss a lass. It was worth repeating.
Her tongue was being flicked by War’s as he pulled back so that only the barest touches were connecting them. Lips glided, breaths mingled, and tongues danced with nubile moves as War took the lead.
She followed him, leaning into the kiss. It was tempting to nip his teasing lips and hold him hostage.
War growled as she tried to capture his mouth.
It almost drowned out the buzz of something vibrating behind her.
“Bastion...?” Tess asked, pulling back from War enough to speak. He still wouldn’t let her turn her head.
“Yes, Kitten?”
“What’s that?”
“Vibrating dildo. Gift for you. War undressed you. I’m getting you dressed.”
She squeezed her thighs together and felt a gush. Was that because of the newest toy or War’s kissing?
“It has a remote,” Bastion said.
He leaned over her body so that every part of his front met her back.
Bastion was hard as the iron footboard she was squeezing with her hands. He rocked himself against her.
“Oh,” Tess said. It turned into more of a moan.
“Let him put it inside you,” War encouraged.
“But I have to shower before I get changed,” Tess said.
Bastion laughed into her ear. “It’s waterproof.”
“I thought we didn't have time to play games?”
“I never said we were going to play with the dildo in my bedroom, Kitten. You have to hurry up and get dressed. We're just placing it, making sure it works. Down in the party is where I plan to give it a test run.”
“Won’t it be noisy?” Tess asked, cheeks going pink.
“Only on the highest speed. If you want it turned off, all you have to do is find which of your boyfriends is holding the remote. Wrong guesses get punished, of course.”
Duplicity (Victory Lap Book 2) Page 26